Oscar Wilde was an outstanding Irish writer, poet, and simply one of the most popular playwrights of all times. The writer’s full name is Oscar Fingal O’Flaherty Wills Wilde. He was born on October the 18th, 1854, in Dublin in a reputable family. His father was a well-known doctor and an author of many scientific works. His mother was a fine lady, who wrote poems about Ireland. The boy’s childhood was directly connected with poetry and theatre, which had a huge impact on his future literary career and lifestyle. His primary education was mainly home-based. At the age of nine Oscar started attending the Enniskillen Royal School. As a teen he spent lots of time at his father’s summer villa. There he often played with a future novelist and short-story writer George Moore.

In 1871 he received a scholarship to attend the Trinity College in Dublin. In his free time he assisted his tutor in writing a book and that’s how he took up writing. In 1874 he entered the Magdalen College. After that he unsuccessfully tried to join the Oxford Union. Unsure of his next step, he decided to expand his poetic efforts. In 1881, he released the first collection of poems. He was only 27 years old then. His works were generally well received by public. In 1884 he married the daughter of a wealthy counsel Horace Lloyd. The couple had two sons. By the 1890s his life was full of public scandals. The first one was connected with the appearance of his novel “The Portrait of Dorian Gray”, which was found to be immoral. The second one was connected with his drama “Solome”, which was banned by the British censors.

However, the biggest scandal was yet to come. In 1895 Oscar Wilde was accused of homosexuality. To defend himself against public accusations he sued his closest friend’s father. Alfred Douglas actually separated Wilde from his family and lived spending his money. However, at the court he spoke as a prosecution witness. The writer was officially convicted of immorality and sentenced to prison. His name immediately disappeared from the theater playbill and was no longer mentioned. During the two years that he spent in prison Wilde wrote two outstanding literary works: “De Profundis” and “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”. Having changed his name, he left England. One of the most brilliant and sophisticated aesthetes of the 19th century spent the last years of his life in poverty and loneliness. Oscar Wilde died on November 30th, 1900, in Paris.